At times, the five progressive supervisors who voted against him said they didn’t agree with his conservative political views. After all, he supported the 8 Washington luxury condo project and the California Pacific Medical Center’s deal with the city.

But at other times, the anti-Antonini bloc said it wanted more diversity on the seven-member board. But Antonini believes that in San Francisco 2012, diversity usually goes only one way.

Census figures actually show Antonini is a minority in San Francisco on most accounts. There is no racial majority in San Francisco; Antonini is white and not of Hispanic origin like 41.8 percent of the city. He’s 66 years old, and seniors make up 13.8 percent of the city. He’s a homeowner like 37.5 percent of the city. And he’s , gasp, a Republican like 9 percent of registered voters in the city.

“If you’re going to talk about diversity and representation, it has to be a broad net,” he said. “I’m someone who speaks for families and speaks for people who have automobiles and have to park them somewhere.”

During the debate, Supervisor David Campos, who voted against Antonini’s reappointment by Mayor Ed Lee said he doesn’t doubt that Antonini is hard-working but so are Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

We expected Antonini would bristle at the comparison, but we were wrong.